


Drôle de Guerre

by lunicole



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Cold War, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Gratuitous French, Hetalia Kink Meme, Historical, Kink Meme, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:54:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1850311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunicole/pseuds/lunicole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had hated it, he tries to tell himself every time, he had hated every single minute of her, of Germany’s long legs and carefree laughs, of the humiliation and how he had used her to get things, little things, a few checks on the mantle of his chimney and the insurance that he wouldn’t be put through the same drill as the ones in the East, the work and the beatings and the days spent in silence in empty cells.</p>
<p>Funny wars with strange development and sour endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Paris, 1940_  
  
France hates her. He hates her because she is so much like her sister in all the wrong ways, with her serious air and her complete lack of elegance. Everything she ever does is practical, even more than Prussia, and she walks with a resolved, mannish stride that seems to be the new way anyone ever wins wars nowadays. France closes his eyes for a very brief instant, and he tries not to think about the red hot anger that flows through his veins. Now is not the proper time, nor the proper place, to let her know how hard he wishes he could kill her in her sleep.  
  
They’re in France’s apartment. He hasn’t moved to Vichy, not yet, because the city still feels like an open wound over his chest. He remembers running, and he remembers hating himself as he wiped the blood in the corner of his mouth, feeling something inside him break as he’d heard that they had made the red, black and white flags float in the  _Champs-Élysées_. Now it’s over. They meet at last.  
  
Germany isn’t like three decades ago. There’s something new about her, the blue of her eyes that has grown colder, the shape of her face that has lost the soft pudginess of youth, and she looks like the kind of determined killer that Prussia once was, before the world caught up with her and made her pay for everything she did to it. France wonders if they will have one of those angry, hateful fucks, their clothes still on and victory written all over Prussia’s face, if she comes to Paris to gloat. Somehow, he doesn’t think they will. Times have changed. Prussia has changed, and the last war has destroyed her.  
  
“ _J’aimerais savoir si vous aviez bien réfléchi au sujet de notre arrangement._ ”  
  
France winces internally. Germany’s grammar is perfect, but her accent is thick and ugly, and he would tell her to shut up if he hadn’t been in his current position. Suddenly, he misses dealing with Austria, or Russia, before he went crazy with great ideas about equality and freedom like France did, so many years ago. At least she’s not making him speak German.  
  
“I did,” he answers simply. “Thoroughly.”  
“Fine. I’m glad that I can rely on your entire cooperation.”  
  
She’s so young, he can’t help but to think, still believing that the likes of them ever had choices in whatever was happening to them, that he maybe didn’t wish to dance over her corpse while singing  _La Marseillaise_. Germany looks out the window, the Seine that flows its smelly, muddy water through the city, and she’s fascinated in all sorts of way France will never understand. France hates this city, has always had, in a way, the grey skies and the mean spirited, angry people, and he’ll never truly understand everyone’s fascination with it. He sighs.  
  
“Do you mind if I smoke?”  
  
She does. France knows she does. It’s because of that dumb, crazy new boss he hates so much that told her to, and because of Germany’s desperate need to follow orders, always. Prussia made her that way, France knows, and he can imagine the both of them now, going through the last decade with resentment and anger about the last war, about the millions of dead men in the trenches, and the feeling that all of this could have been avoided if Prussia hadn’t got drunk with power and wished so hard to destroy France a second time around. France doesn’t feel sorry about any of this, not any more than England or the rest of them.  
  
“Not at all.” Her voice doesn’t waver, but she’s nowhere near as good a liar as Austria. Different times, different styles. “Please go ahead.”  
  
He does as he’s told, slipping one between his lips and carefully putting back his pack of Gauloises back in the inside pocket of his suit.   
  
“How is your sister?” he asks matter-of-factly, even though he knows that he’s sure to get Germany uncomfortable, a little bit. “I’m surprised she’s not here with you.”  
“She hates Paris.”  
  
It’s because of 1918, most probably, and of France’s last words to her, the triumphant yet tired smile on his face, and the cough in the back of her throat that wouldn’t heal.  
  
“And you don’t?”  
  
He grins around his cigarette, and she tilts her head to give him a look that isn’t anger but that isn’t what he had expected it. She’s not angry, or even piqued. There’s a serene, quiet kind of retreat in her face that isn’t what he’d expected. She’s young, but she isn’t as stupid as France had thought first. Maybe it’s true, that the last three decades hardened her into something that isn’t quite what Prussia had intended her to be, such a long time ago.  
  
“No. I don’t hate it. It’s beautiful.”  
  
France doesn’t believe her for one minute, but she did spare the city a war this time, picking humiliation as a better fit for him, and he isn’t sure if he doesn’t hate her even more for it, in a way. She isn’t Prussia, and she is everything that is wrong with Prussia, now France knows.   
  
He chuckles, crushes his cigarette in the ashtray on the tea table. Then, he rises to his feet, approaching her and the window, putting his hands on her large, muscular shoulders. Her skin is warm, sunkissed from the physical training she puts herself through every day. She doesn’t respond to the gesture, not right away, still looking out the window with a stern, concentrated look. Prussia must have told her about France’s ways, but she’s not actively pushing him away yet. She is so young and it makes him want to see her cry.  
  
“ _Tu n’es pas venue ici, seule, dans mon appartement, juste pour me parler de la pluie et du beau temps._ ” His lips ghosts over the taut skin of her neck. “ _Comment tu veux que je te baises cette fois-ci, mon petit coeur, à quatre pattes sur le sol comme une chienne ?_ ”  
  
The wall hits the back of his head, but that’s not what makes him dizzy. There’s something blocking his windpipe, pressing with the strength and the unforgiveness of steel. Germany’s hands are over his throat, and there’s a very real, very dangerous spark of anger in her eyes. She is like Prussia, but she isn’t like Prussia like that, obviously, and France wonders if it’s because she hates him that much or if she’s once of those women that prefer other women.  
  
“ _Ruhe!_ ” Her voice is trembling with anger, switching back to German out of rage, and she’s tall, now that France thinks of it, taller than Prussia or Austria, and deadly in a way that he’s never seen before.   
  
France’s vision is too blurry for him to see anything, but he can hear Germany’s voice, low and lethal, with that same atrocious accent in measured French.  
  
“Talk to me like this one more time, and I swear I will break you just like I broke Czechoslovakia, Poland and the others. This is my final warning.”  
  
She lets go of him, and he falls on the ground, powerless. France hates this, hates bowing down to a girl that isn’t even past her first century and already half insane with a bad case of dictatorship mixed to a healthy dose of sister complex. He hates how powerless he feels, how he’s left to wonder if he shouldn’t do things like Austria and let this new century swallow him whole without even trying to fight back. Their time is slipping between his fingers, and he looks at Germany’s tall, powerful form as she leaves his apartment, her heavy boots making her steps lose all kind of grace or elegance, even though he’s sure she never had any to begin with.  
  
He stays there, and looks out the window. Outside, he can see, no, feel, those same heavy steps reverberating all over Paris, the sound of an occupied city.  
  
*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “J’aimerais savoir si vous aviez bien réfléchi au sujet de notre arrangement.” = I’d like to know if you’ve had time to think about our arrangement.  
> “Tu n’es pas venue ici, seule, dans mon appartement, juste pour me parler de la pluie et du beau temps. Comment tu veux que je te baises cette fois-ci, mon petit coeur, à quatre pattes sur le sol comme une chienne ?” = You didn’t come here alone just to chat. How do you want me to fuck you this time, my darling, on all fours on the ground like a bitch?  
> “Ruhe!” = Silence!


	2. Chapter 2

_Berlin, 1942_  
  
“ _Guten Morgen liebe Sonne !_ ”  
  
It’s early morning and France’s head hurts from last night. It’s because of the beer that tastes like shit, he tried to tell himself, and he’s only ever half right, because he has grown more and more skilled in the fine art of lying to himself in the last two years. He doesn’t like being here and he hates, hates, hates Berlin, because it smells so much like Prussia. It looks like her too, ugly buildings that are both new and old at the same time, and plans for a bright future that makes France wonders how can an empire be ruled by such an insane leader.   
  
France groans.  
  
“ _T’es vraiment qu’une salope…_ ”  
  
Prussia crackles, and she walks towards the bed with a confident stride. France opens one eye, sees her face, closes it again. She takes it as an invitation to drag the covers off his sleeping body. She whistles mockingly as he turns on his side, his naked body shivering in the morning breeze. He’s nowhere near as muscular as he used to be, and she likes to poke fun at that whenever she can. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like she hadn’t grown fat in the last few years too anyway.  
  
“ _Vu d’ici, c’est plutôt toi la salope, mein Liebling,_ ” she counter triumphantly, and he can only groggily try to wake up, defeated. “Get up, old man. I brought you breakfast and everything.”  
  
She isn’t lying, in that flawless French that sounds so different from her sister’s harsh accent, and France has to acknowledge that as he hears the sound of coffee being prepared in the adjacent kitchen. He finally gets out of bed, puts on a dressing gown, drags himself through the door. The clock ticks over ten thirty, and France sighs, passing a hand through his hair. He doesn’t make a spiritual comment about how Prussia knows how to brew perfect coffee and pick decent croissants in Berlin of all places from too many regretful fucks with Austria, before he’d dragged her into a war that would destroy her. He’s not dumb enough to give her a chance to comment on his own current behaviour. He knows what she thinks of it.  
  
It doesn’t stop her from mentioning it.  
  
“You know, I would say good job, because hey, you weaseled your ass out of trouble like a pro, literally, but it’s not like if you were dealing with somebody who has a clue of whatever it is that she’s doing,” Prussia says as she places a plate and a warm mug on the table as France sits himself. Her tone has that usual bitchy, devil-may-care quality, but France can hear something softer underneath it all. He hopes she hates herself for the mess that her sister is turning into. It’s not entirely her fault, but France hasn’t been in a forgiving mood ever since 1871.  
  
He closes his eyes, and the smell of coffee, real coffee, is nice to his nostrils. Prussia has a lot of faults, but France can’t say she’s anything near cheap. He takes a sip, hums lowly in appreciation. Prussia only looks at him with a look that isn’t anger, not quite yet, and it’s the first time that France realises how old she’s grown in the last century, her face aging more and more noticeably every decade.  
  
“Is this jealousy?” he smirks.  
“Do you really believe that your dick is that good? Because it’s not, trust me.”  
  
France doesn’t take offense, not really, putting a piece of croissant in his mouth mindlessly. They’ve known each other for too long to care about those things anymore.  
  
“Then what is it?”  
“You being an opportunistic asshole, for starters,” she says dryly as she carefully applies jam to her own pastry. “You know I thought I was done with Austria whoring his way through politics, but now that he’s done doing that, you of all people are taking his place and starting with my sister.”  
  
France sips his coffee as she speaks, looks at her face, and he can’t help but to wonder why is Prussia telling him all of this now. It’s too early to be talking about politics, he believes, but it’s not like he had much of a choice in all of this. Prussia had the decency of bringing him food, at least.  
  
“You’re the one who refused to even talk to me when I had to come to Berlin because of the new government,” he points out flatly. “I would have had you instead of her, you know. Germany’s so… provincial.”  
  
Prussia’s anger seems to flare up at the sound of her sister’s name, and she knocks the table with her fist, making the utensils ting but managing not to make anything fall or break.  
  
“You really don’t understand, do you?” Her accent is almost noticeable whenever she’s angry, France is aware of that. “This isn’t about you and me, France. I’m not here to beg you to fuck me again or some shit. I never liked you and you never liked me, and I’m done with those stupid games we used to play.”   
  
Her lower lip is trembling imperceptibly, and her gaze is averted, observing the uneaten croissant in her plate. She takes a deep breath, trying to get herself back under control. Prussia’s not good at it, self-control anywhere outside the battlefield, unlike Germany, and France wonders if it’s the Polish blood in her veins that make her this way. He has the feeling he’ll never know for sure.  
  
Then, it hits him. It hits him, how thinner she’s gotten, how pale she is and how she reeks of the kind of cheap tobacco she usually wouldn’t even touch to. She isn’t here, playing tough and sending out thinly veiled threats, because of him. She’s here because of Germany.  
  
“Do you seriously think that I’m the one who persuaded her to leave for the East?”  
  
Prussia looks at him. It’s all so clear, now, because France can see it on her face, the anguish and the guilt. She knows it’s her fault, in a way, whatever it is that is happening to her sister, the megalomania and dreams of empires that will last a thousand years. This isn’t like with Saxony or Bavaria, with the siblings she can lie to and use as tools. Germany is her finest creation, and she’s the only one in which Prussia can ever hope to find salvation, if such a thing exists for their kind. She knows this war isn’t going to end well, now, Prussia can feel that kind of things in her gut, and her whole body, the tension in her back and in her neck and the very still hands that curled into fists over the table, is an open book.  
  
She doesn’t say anything, and it’s enough of an answer for France. He still hasn’t forgiven her for Sedan and for the trenches, probably never truly will. His words are dry and cruel.  
  
“I didn’t, but I wish I had.”  
  
Germany never talks about politics whenever she’s with him, and his latest attempts to get her to spit out some valuable information all ended up in complete failure, her irises turning a harsher shade of steely blue as she slapped his face with an unmoving expression and enough strenght to draw blood. Germany wants him for what he represents, for the soft words and for warmth, but she’s not stupid, or at least not stupid enough to forget that France hates her, has always done. She knows better than to believe that any of this is real whenever France takes her out in the fanciest restaurants of the  _Sixième Arrondissement_  and kisses her in one of those small back alleys around the  _Boulevard St-Michel_ , whispering sweet nothings into her ear as they fuck. He plays the game only because he knows that she won’t push him away, maybe not yet, and because it feels like it's the only way he can make sure he won’t end up looking like Czechoslovakia.  
  
Prussia hadn’t realised this, and France suddenly wonders when exactly his most superb and hated nemesis got so stupid. She’s there, in front of him, with the answer to the question she came here for, and no one but herself to blame for the shithole that the Russian campaign is turning into.  
  
“ _Scheiße…_ ” she clutches her knife very briefly, and France can only watch with a victorious grin growing on his lips as she rises from her chair.  
  
“Not hungry?”  
“ _Va te faire foutre._ ”  
  
She picks up her coat before heading out, and France knows what she’s thinking about now. She’s thinking about the terrible winter of 1812 and the hint of madness she had seen on Russia’s face when she had seen him again afterwards, the stench of blood all over his clothes and that triumphant feeling as she danced in the ballrooms of the luminous Vienna of prince Metternich. France remembers it all too clearly, too, the ecstasy of being at the top of the world, the arrogance and the triumphant march into Moscow. He remembers spring and summer, and he remembers fall and winter, and the unforgiving Russian winter that tasted like blood, defeat and human flesh still stuck between his teeth.  
  
Russia had never been like the rest of them, not really, but he had always been good at faking it, and it seemed like Germany had somehow forgotten about everything that had happened before the building of her glorious Reich. The door closes shut, and France can hear Prussia’s boots in the stairs, their fast pace that hide the anger and the feeling of urgency to convince her sister to please, please, please stop this madness.   
  
France sighs, and he leans back into his chair as he sips his coffee and lights his morning cigarette. He thinks about Germany, about her dry muscles and the taste of her in his mouth, how she closes her eyes, writhes and moans when he tongues her into orgasm. He can’t help but to shiver out of anticipation at the idea of her dying a thousand times in the snows of Stalingrad.  
  
*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Guten Morgen liebe Sonne !” = Good morning, dear sun!  
> “T’es vraiment qu’une salope…” = You’re such a bitch.  
> “Vu d’ici, c’est plutôt toi la salope, mein Liebling,” = (French) From where I stand, I’d say that you are the bitch, (German) my dear.  
> “Scheiße…” = Shit...  
> “Va te faire foutre.” = Go fuck yourself


	3. Chapter 3

_Saint-Germain en Laye, 1919_

It’s a bright new day, and the warm sun makes France forget about how he aches all over, how he feels like he’s going to collapse soon. It’s a bright new day because the war is over, at last, and he’s had Prussia on her knees, anger and despair painted all over her face because her time is past, now. Prussia wanted to touch the sun and she had burned herself trying to take over the world, crushed her siblings into a fine dust and destroyed her darling, dearest little Germany.

The aching in the back his throat doesn’t matter, he’s going to treat it soon enough with a healthy dose of the kind of good wine he couldn’t have back in the trenches, and maybe a few fleeting embraces with some of Montmartre’s finest prostitutes. America is paying, anyway, and France knows better than to be rude enough to refuse. While it does pisses him off that America pretends that the only reason this war was won is his coming to Europe, France can hold his tongue and spend somebody else’s money any time.

He walks into the castle with a smile on his face and humming one of those new songs that he’s heard America listen to on the radio, jazzy tunes that, in a very odd foreign way, remind France of the sound of the slaves in Haiti, all those years ago. He’s early, as he wants his guests and allies to be comfortable for the meeting and has a few last-minute arrangements to make for the seatings and the reception. He expects that Italy might want to have something nicer to eat than the awful rations that constituted everyone’s diet in the last four years, and he’s ready to make him happy, as long as he doesn’t ask too much of all of them.

What he doesn’t expect is to see Austria, of all people, waiting for him in one of the armchairs of the main hall, a book in his hand. He looks nice like this, still very well dressed, his hair still a romantic mess as if the 19th century had never ended. How very dramatic. How very Austrian.

“ _Du Contrat Social_ ,” France reads from the cover as he stops in front of him. He’s not going to give Austria the satisfaction of placing the first word.

Austria’s eyes rise up, looking at France with a carefully neutral expression over his glasses. He’s playing a game, the both of them always are, and France wonders if he’ll try to charm his way out of the mess he got himself in once again. It won’t work, because this century isn’t like the others, with its bombs and its machine guns, and the Hapsburgs that have fled Vienna after half a millennia of reign.

“ _Du rattrapage à faire, j’en ai peur_ ,” Austria announces softly, and the book shuts close with a dry sound.

France isn’t sure he understands the point of the whole setting Austria put up for him, but it’s not like if Austria’s ways can get him anywhere now, and so France doesn’t see the necessity of making him leave just yet. In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s enjoying this, one of his oldest enemies bowing in front of him after the largest, deadliest war this world had ever seen.

“I never thought I would live long enough to see you read Rousseau.”

Austria pushes his glasses up his nose, and there’s almost, almost a smile on his face. It’s an aborted kind of sad smile, the one that looks like a wince of pain and tastes like defeat.

“Russia successfully turned against the czars. Anything can happen now.”

France knows that Austria will never mention the past directly, those forty years of war and how France had crushed him, yes, but also humiliated him in a way that Austria would probably never forget. He also knows that there’s a reason why Russia isn’t sitting with the rest of them on the negotiation table, and he can’t help but to feel a tiny little bit of pity, because he knows what it feels like, change, revolution and madness, and how the world always hates the ones who fight for a brighter future.

He also knows that they can't have Russia here for very real, very valid reasons. Austria is just trying to mess with his mind.

"It doesn't change the fact that you're not supposed to be here," he says in a tone that is trying to be firm.

Austria sighs, and he does it like a prince does, still elegant even in defeat. It’s almost like Austerlitz, in a way, hated Austrian princesses coming back to Paris, Austria himself throwing himself in France’s arm with an abandon that was hard to resist to. France had had his fun, back then, but it had come to an end, just like Austria was coming to an end himself today.

"You weren't supposed to be in Vienna, back then."

Austria isn't wrong, even though France hates to concede him that, staying silent as an only answer. It's only fair game, and Austria had only given him one of those dark, dark glances when he had seen him in the ballrooms of Vienna, as Waterloo destroyed his emperor’s hopes for the future and the world twirled around itself trying to forget the fire France had ignited.

"Are you here to warn me that your revenge will have me destroyed a thousand time over? Because your desperate little whore has already done that at least ten times in the past two days."

Austria's face doesn't waver from its expression that is both bored and detached, but there is something in his eyes that lights up with anger. France knows he's hit his mark.

"I'm not here to warn you about me, or Prussia for that matter." His tone is still measured, still calm, but something harsher lingers on the tip of his tongue and the sharper tones of his discrete yet unmistakable accent. "I'm here to warn you about Germany."

France raises an eyebrow.

"Do you expect me to be afraid of a girl who openly wept as she read the clauses concerning the reparations she'd have to pay for the war? She can't even speak French properly, let alone wage a war without Prussia telling her what to do."  
"You don't know what she’s capable of."

Austria's voice is cracking now, a tiny little bit, and there's this very thin sense of urgency in the way he looks at France, his lips thin and his eyebrows frowning ever so slightly. He's not playing anymore, and it makes France smile in triumph.

“I know perfectly well what she’s capable of. Better than you, I must say, although probably not the same way that you do.”

Austria knows better than to answer to that kind of backhanded accusation, mainly because it’s true, and France knows. He sighs, takes a step forward, looks at France with a look that almost, almost transmit the weariness he feels now, the years that have taken their toll on Austria and on his precious monarchy.

"Please..." he says, and it sounds like a prayer, his voice full of catholic guilt and devout ultramontanism. He sounds like a dead man begging for one last chance at salvation. Maybe he is, in a way. “Please let me help her.”

France wonders for a very brief moment if Austria would go as low as to sink on his knees here and now and suck his cock to get what he wants, but he doesn't want to risk it. He only gives Austria a cool glance, hands on his shoulder in a mock gesture of compassion.

He wants another Hungary, probably, one that won't grow bitter and hate him for his games and his lies. She had stormed out from his house a few months earlier, France knows this from Bavaria, who always talks too much for his own good, and maybe it had broken Austria heart, even though they had hated each other with a burning passion ever since 1848 and Russia breaking her into submission. Austria’s empire has turned to dust, and there is nothing he can do but to try to keep his head out of the water and hoping this new century wouldn't drown him.

"I'm afraid I can't do that." France closes his eyes, chasing imaginary dust from Austria's suit. “Goodbye, Austria.”

France doesn't have the time to deal with that kind of things, not now, and it doesn't even matter if saying no to Austria will please Prussia anymore. As he walks away, towards the large salon that will welcome the guests, he can hear Austria's own steps heading for the door. Defeat must taste odd for him this time, France imagine, as modern wars, wars to end all wars, do not function the same way the fights of old did. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Du Contrat Social_ is the original French title of the book _The Social Contract_ of the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It played an important role during the French Revolution, as it is upon Rousseau’s ideas that Robespierre, France’s favorite _dictateur extraordinaire_ (after Napoléon eh), constructed his political ideology.  
>  _Du rattrapage à faire, j’en ai peur_ = I have some catching up to do, I’m afraid.


	4. Chapter 4

_Vichy, 1941_

The both of them are drunk out of their usual precautions around each other, drunk enough not to care about the look the hotel clerk gives them as they pass in front of the office giggling like children. It's been a nice evening and a nice supper in town, even France has to admit it, and even though he still hates Germany, it doesn't make her breasts any less enjoyable as he squeezes them in his palms against the wall of the hotel's corridor. The whole thing almost, almost feels like a dream, in a way, except maybe the vague sickness in France's gut as he kisses her throat and hears her moan softly.

There's some disordered fumbling with the keys to the room, a few more giggles, and the both of them are crashing inside the room.

"Close the door," Germany breathes out as France presses her against the wall, and he obeys, kicking it shut because he is a gentleman, after all.

There's more kissing, and Germany bites exactly like her sister, with her eyes closed and her teeth sharp, France observes in one nebulous drunken thought. He doesn't tell Germany about it, his hands firmly her hips, lifting up the dress that she conceded to put on tonight, abandoning the uniform she usually wears whenever France is around, the one that’s black as death and that reeks of blood. It’s a nice dress, well cut, that hugs Germany’s hips and tits in an almost dangerous way. It had been one of the signs, probably, that France would get his way this time around.

His hands travel up her legs, feeling the silk of her stockings and hungering for more. They're plump, but not unpleasantly so, muscle shivering underneath her skin, and seemingly infinite, especially when she wears garments that aren’t so desperately trying to make her look like a man. France knows he’s enjoying this too much for what it is, but he’s far too intoxicated to care about whatever happened to his ideals and morality. All he feels is her chest pushing against him, the little breathy whimpers, and himself growing hard as she impatiently pushes his waistcoat open with uneasy fingers.

He looks at her, how hungry she looks, and it hits him, hard, whatever it is that is happening right now, and how he isn’t the only one playing a fine, delicate strategy here.

France has been trying to bed Germany at least a few dozen time in the last year, but Germany is nowhere near as easy as Prussia, and nowhere near as carefree when it comes to things like this. He had learned to change his game to please her, what words made her harsh ( _Angleterre, Mademoiselle, Libération_ ) and what words made her soft ( _Impressionant, Coup de Force, Paris_ ). He had learned her twists and her shapes, the way she pursed her lips whenever she was angry, and how the blue of her eyes got sharp and dangerous whenever France made the mistake of bad mouthing her boss. She didn’t beat him up nearly as often as France had imagined she would, even though there was always that subtle tension in the muscles of her arms that looked like it was ready to burst whenever France asked with a tone that bordered on the mocking about Poland’s well being. She likes him, in a way, because she likes Paris and the way it shines, and she likes the romantic spirit of a city that represent a past she has never known, not really.

France had learned how to read Germany, how to have her smile and how to have her give him things she wouldn’t even let Italy have. He knows this now, from their walk together on the banks of the Seine, from their afternoon in the warm sun in _l’Orangerie_ , the coffee dates in _Saint-Germain des Prés_ and the way she’d always let him dig a little bit deeper inside her mind. France had learned how to play Germany, but now he realises that she had learned how to play him too.

Her hands are sliding his shirt off his shoulders, tracing patterns over his chest, and they’re cool, making him shiver as they caress his skin. They’re on the bed now, Germany’s dress raised up to her waist as she straddles his hips with her long, toned legs. Her nails ghost over his throat as she kisses him once more, and France remembers the air being cut out of his throat and his vision turning into a blurry mess. He can’t say if she’s doing this on purpose, because Germany isn’t good at lying but she is good at concealing whatever is going on in her mind when she needs to. It does feel like it, in a way, like she’s warning him once more about the situation he’s in.

Without him knowing about it, that simply gesture, the grinding of Germany’s hips against him as he kisses her mouth, her chin, her throat and the soft skin of her breasts and niples, make him lose any kind of lingering afterthoughts. There’s urgency in the trembling of her hands as she gets herself out of her dress, the same urgency France himself feels as he pushes aside her underwear and caresses her with fluttering touches of his thumb. She bites her lips, and says “ _Ah! Oui!_ ” in a tone of complete bliss that makes France’s cock twitch.

She’s very wet when he finally slips inside of her, still half-dressed with his pants open and hanging low on his legs. Her knees lose their usual strength for a very short instant, and she’s nowhere near as fluid and playful as her sister as she scratches his back, closes her eyes and breathes nervously. There’s a few screams that die in her throat before even making a sound as she grips the back of his neck, pushing him deeper inside. They don’t speak, and France feels her shivering all over, his cock buried between her legs. They move awkwardly, without coordination, really, and there’s a sick kind of pleasure to be taken from it, France feels in haphazard thoughts, how subtly off this all feels, how this was never truly meant to happen. Her lips are over his again, and the strange illness inside his chest doesn’t go away, never really.

It surprises him when he sees her rubbing herself as he fucks her. Even on her back, she’s quick, efficient, with her eyes tightly shut and her free hand gripping the sheets of the bed. Germany has always had this very virginal air, a maiden of war that was never meant to be looked at or touched. It’s stupid of him to think that she’s a virgin, obviously, and he can’t help but to wonder if Italy had her like this first. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was Austria, with his precious delicate hands and his controlled moans. France thinks about Prussia for a very brief instant, if she would be above having her own sister, because if he’s learnt anything in the past century, it’s never to believe Prussia to be above anything anymore. He won’t ask Germany about it, because she won’t tell, and because he’s done a good job out of letting her believe what she wants to believe so far.

She comes first, in waves, pathetic little cries, and France feels himself close, too close. He pulls himself out, finished himself with a few needy strokes over her stomach, his head raised and his eyes closed. He’s thinking about Vietnam, about her lithe little limbs and soft in a tongue France never tried to understand, or so he tries to tell himself. His pulse seems to resonate inside his ears as he slowly comes back to earth, rolling to the side next to Germany.

She’s still shivering from her own orgasm as he pulls out his pack of Gauloises from his abandoned suit jacket on the side of the bed. They’ve survived the rough treatment, surprisingly enough, and France lights one without even looking at Germany, tired eyes as he lets himself fall back on the bed, still a little bit drunk. Germany doesn’t say a word either, and she’s taken a tissue from the bedside table to wipe France’s come off of her without a comment. There’s nothing to say, really, and France smokes without talking, longs sighs that mean everything and nothing at all, he feels.

Germany is next to him, naked over the sheets, and there’s a tension in her arms, in her shoulders and in her elbows. France doesn’t know what she’s thinking about, and he doesn’t care, as he put a kiss on her forehead without a warning. She looks at him for a moment, with eyes that aren’t nearly as cold as usual. She’s young and stupid, but not completely, in a way. She knows he’s playing a game, the both of them are, but she’s not as good as France is at it, and she knows she’s getting too involved in this. She’s started to believe this.

“I love you,” he lies softly, with all the right tones and the right inflections in his voice.

She can only reply that she does too.

*


	5. Chapter 5

_Potsdam, 1945_

England doesn’t even look at him straight in the eyes anymore, and France gets the reason why she’s like this, maybe, with her hair securely pinned into a tight bun behind her head and an undeniable weariness to her frame. This war hadn’t been like the precedent war, but it had drained her in a much more vicious way, and she had aged noticeably since the last time France saw her. It doesn’t matter, he tries to tell himself, because England is like Prussia, she plays and lies and cheats and beats her way towards whatever goal she fixed herself. 

It’s funny to be here again, in the gardens of Sanssouci. “ _Without worries_ ,” Russia had translated in hesitant English during the meeting, giving the three of them a knowing look. He’s good at this, at standing tall even though everyone knows he’s bled himself to death a thousand time in Ukraine, Poland and Germany in the last three years and that he spends his evenings drinking the pain away, now that everything is over. France understand, begrudgingly so, what Russia is going through. He’s still as insane as he was back then, back in 1918, and there’s a part of him, somewhere deep inside his chest, that wants all of them dead for leaving him to die trying to destroy Germany’s madness with his own in the snows of Stalingrad.

Germany. France had often wondered if he could ever hate her as much as he had hated Prussia, and now he knows he can.

“You don’t look nearly as sorry as you should be.”

England never was one for delicate words or charming diplomacy. She drops bombs like these just because she feels like to, as they’re walking in the gardens, her hands folded behind her as the both of them walk around the lush bushes. The castle isn’t nearly as destroyed as France thought it would have been, and it was Russia’s idea to come here, maybe because he wants to humiliate both Germany and Prussia in the most intimate way possible. France understands.

“It depends how sorry you think it’s acceptable for me to be,” France eludes with an equal voice. “How sorry are you yourself?”

England makes that face, the one that looks angry and defeated, doesn’t answer right away. France used to find it cute, a few centuries ago, but not anymore, because they’ve known each other for too long now. They know that the only reason why they’re not destroying each other is because they’ve had other people to break and kill in the last century. France is never going to apologize for Hastings, and England never will either for Joan of Arc, but the Middle Ages are over, and so are France and England, in a way.

Entente Cordiale. The name rings painfully true. There isn’t anything more than words that unite them, nothing but words, smoke and broken mirrors.

“You know,” France starts off, “maybe Russia isn’t that wrong when he bitches about how you and America don’t truly want peace. The both of you didn’t exactly win this war, not really.”  
“And you, of all people, would know about winning and losing wars, right?”

She’s not going to say it out loud, even though everybody knows, because it would break the impact it has on France, how it marks him as a traitor, hanging over him without a word and how he’s been hating everything about himself for the last decade or so. He had hated it, he tries to tell himself every time, he had hated every single minute of her, of Germany’s long legs and carefree laughs, of the humiliation and how he had used her to get things, little things, a few checks on the mantle of his chimney and the insurance that he wouldn’t be put through the same drill as the ones in the East, the work and the beatings and the days spent in silence in empty cells.

Funny wars with strange development and sour endings. 

“You don’t know anything about wars, England, and you never did, hiding on your island, with Europe but not of it. Go back to taking America’s cock, because that’s the only thing you know how to do well.”

It’s a gratuitous attack, and France doesn’t even try to dodge the slap that comes to his face. England didn’t put her whole strength in it, but it’s only because she’s so shocked he’d go as low as that. She never performs well at anything if she lets her emotions get the best of her, has never done.

“At least I wasn’t the one busy fucking Aryan bombshells for Hitler.”

And on these words, she storms away, anger making her petite frame virtually vibrate in fury. France holds his cheek for a moment, feels it pulsating under his finger from the impact. It had been awhile since England had let go of that bitchy, haughty persona she likes to put up front ever since the start of the 19th century as completely, and he’s glad, in a way. France looks up to the sky with a soft smile on his face. England doesn’t understand, or, more exactly, she doesn’t want to understand, because France knows that, had she been in his position, she would have done the same. He can only hope that she wouldn’t have done just quite as beautifully as him.

The cigarette slips between his lips with practiced ease, and the smoke is bitter, because those are Russia’s, not his. He pickpocketed from him during their last encounter, but Russia hadn’t seen him do so, or he had done his best not to look like he had.. He wonders what Germany is doing right now, if she’s still throwing up blood because of the state Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne are all in. 

France hasn’t seen Prussia. He knows she has been taken under Russia’s care, if care is a proper word to whatever Russia wants to do with her after she had destroyed his everything and raped his lands. It’s only payback, in a way, for the insanity of the war and the death chambers, that Russia might want to have her suffer through it. Russia has been dying too much, too often, and it had hardened him into a new kind of monster France isn’t sure he fully understands. 

War is about winners and losers and men going insane, has always been. Prussia knows this, and she knows how to take it, but Germany doesn’t, because she’s so young and because she’s still ever so naive. It had surprised France, to see her, still a proud warrior, break down and openly weep when Russia, with a sickly little smile and a few pats on the shoulder, had showed her the reels from the camps. She didn’t know, maybe, or maybe she didn’t want to know about them, about the reason why she smelled of ash and smoke no matter how harshly she scrubbed her skin with soap and water. France wonders if she’s trying to play a game with them again, and if she knows that this kind of set up is completely useless when dealing with someone like Russia.

There is no pity to be had now, not with Germany, not anymore.

Night has fallen when he finally comes back from his stroll in the woods and neighbouring destruction that surrounds the whole of Berlin. They’ve made the big decisions without him, America, England and Russia, but he doesn’t care too much. He knows why he’s not with them right now, and it’s okay. The war is over, at least in Europe, for now, and France knows he’ll have to wash his hands raw to stop feeling like death is still sticking to his fingers, the smell of the trains that left for the East never to come back.

*


	6. Chapter 6

_West-Berlin, 1949_

They had give her her own money and they had given her little bits and part of her past freedom, and it had pissed France off. They knew but they didn't know, their heads too deep in the sand, screaming about Russia here and Russia there, forgetting about the war and forgetting about what truly mattered.

France knows how politics work, how time can fly in four short years, but it still makes him angry sometimes because there is nothing he can do about it, nothing at all. He won the war but he didn’t in a way, and so both America and England act accordingly. It makes his hands curl into fists, and his mind go to places he’d rather forget, to the look on Germany’s face when she had come back from the East, and to how he had looked at her bend down and break with delight. It’s not the same now, not really, and France has to change with the times, even though he wish he could still fight against it.

The sound of airplanes over his head feels like war, a little bit, but it doesn’t matter. He looks up to the sky one last time before getting into the house they’ve assigned Germany here, in the American sector, not too far from Friedrichstrasse. It’s slowly turning into a dark blue as the sun sets, with hints of grey as the jagged skyline of the destroyed city seems to mix with the horizon. 

They’ve been relaying each other here in Berlin, with Russia having another of his fits of insanity and wanting the city all to himself, or so America says. France knows it’s probably a bit deeper than that, but he doesn’t say a word about those things anymore, not really. It’s his turn to be here, with England off to India and her crumbling empire and America getting one or two things done out there in the Far East, with Japan. 

Japan. France hasn’t seen him in ever since the peace treaties in Asia and a few soft kisses on Vietnam’s hair as she let him hold her without a move, and he wonders idly if it’s true, that those bombs really did kill him in a way their kind hasn’t seen before. He hopes America won’t go insane with the power they’ve given him, more insane than Russia already is, but it’s not like he had any power over this. He shrugs, takes off his coat as he climbs up the stairs of a building that is still half-destroyed like the rest of this city with weary steps. Somehow, he’s not sure he wants to see Germany just yet.

“ _Oh, bonsoir France_ ,” she greets him with a tired voice after he’d knocked on her door. “Please come in.”

She looks half-dead, but it’s been five years of her looking half-dead. France still hasn’t grown used to it. It’s something in her gestures that have changed in a fundamental way since Nuremberg, the way she moves, not the feral beast she used to be but a very sad, very broken kind of aging farm animal now. He knows she’s little more than that nowadays, working around the clock to make sure the city doesn’t crumble on itself. Something inside France hopes it’s going to kill her.

“Would you like something to drink?”

France nods, even though he knows she only has coffee ersatz and maybe a few dry biscuits to offer. It just feels like the polite thing to do.

“Thank you Germany.”

She looks like a sick child as she goes through her cupboards and prepares the both of them a late evening snack. France wonders if it was Prussia who usually took care of that, because it seems like Germany isn’t completely sure of whatever she’s supposed to be doing in a kitchen. It makes France smile, a bit, but he’s good at hiding it as she comes back with two cups and a soft look on her face. Maybe this is submission, or maybe it’s simply a long, drawn-out apology that he knows Germany will never be able to properly place into words. It’s okay, because France knows he won’t be able to properly forgive her if she ever does say it out loud. 

“How have you been?” he asks with a voice of practiced politeness. “Is there anything you need? America told me you were doing pretty good lately and that you had asked for news from your sister.”

It’s a trick kind of question, and Germany doesn’t raise her eyes from her own cup of muddy ersatz, her voice even softer as she speaks in measured French, vowels losing themselves in her throat.

“I, em, I’ve been alright, thank you… And yes, I would like to… I would like to speak with my sister, if it’s possible... Please.” 

She has one of those little sighs, and France doesn’t find it in himself to revel in her very visible anguish. Germany bends and break, and she builds herself back up with sheer will power, he’s seen her do so before, but this time it’s different. Maybe she truly regrets, more than France does, in a way, whatever happened to those humans sent off in the night for good.

“I don’t think Russia will let you,” France says simply, and it’s an honest answer. “But I’ll try to do something, if I can.”

He doesn’t tell Germany what he’s heard about whatever it is that is happening to Prussia right now. It’s all rumours, and Poland always had a big mouth, especially when it came to bashing Russia and Prussia for being dickheads. Poland hadn’t sounded so good either on the phone, his voice strained and purposefully glossing over a few details about his current whereabouts, but France knew better than to ask him questions about it, about how he’d always fight his way up to the light, catholic faith and pure rage fuelling him in his seemingly never ending fight against Russia.

Prussia had gotten payback for the war, and a harsher one than Germany. France is not feeling sorry for his old enemy, has never really done, because he had wanted her dead for good in 1945, all of them had, except Russia, with his schemes and his smiles that left a sour taste in France’s mouth as he said that he’d take care of the East for it never to spiral in the same imperialist delusions that had guided it so far. He knows that Prussia would have hated it if he had shown her even an ounce of sympathy about whatever Russia would turn her into anyway. He doesn’t tell Germany about this either.

“ _Merci. Merci énormément._ ”

Germany’s eyes seem to be a bit bluer, a bit brighter as she finally gets herself to look at him, and France has this feeling in his gut that she doesn’t fully understand what is happening right now, in a way. He only has a half-commiserating smile to offer her.

They speak about things that do not matter, and France makes a pleasant conversation enough, just like in Paris in 1941, even though he knows that it isn’t quite the same. It’s weird, how she lets him say things without even batting an eyelash now, how she hasn’t mentioned the nights in Vichy and in Berlin to him even once. They both want to forget, and yet they know that they never truly will.

They don’t talk about Italy either, about how he had ended up hating her, even after the soft kisses and the cheerful smiles, and maybe something like genuine affection between them in a way France will never truly understand coming from someone as old as Italy. It’s not very important now anyway. The both of them have their own problems to deal with, the curtain that everyone knows is falling over Europe and the feeling that their world, the one of empires and blood and iron, has turned into dust under the fire of the bombers and the tanks.

As he leaves, France kisses both of her cheeks out of politeness, and Germany only stands there, very still, very much uncomfortable as he does. She’s got more work to do tomorrow morning, she mentions offhandedly as she closes the door, but she would like to have a chat with France whenever he wants to drop by if he so wishes.

Outside, the planes still fly over Berlin.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Oh, bonsoir France_ = Oh, good evening France.  
>  _Merci. Merci énormément._ = Thank you. Thank you very much.


	7. Chapter 7

_Paris, 1944_

It's strange to be back, and France still hates Paris in a way, for it hasn't fallen because of his own cowardice. The bridges are still there, and the world is still burning with a war that is slowly being won on all fronts, strangling Germany in a way France had dreamed for those short four years that felt like a century.

France remembers Berlin, the small apartment, Germany coming to him whenever she'd need a good fuck, leaving a check over his bedside table without a word about it. She'd say the most beautiful things in bed sometimes, love and death twirling on her tongue in that hesitant French France had grown too familiar with. He’d listen to her, and he’d close his eyes and think about Prussia getting killed in Russia times and times again. It made him smile in an almost truthful way.

He'd left telling her sweet little lies about needing to get things back under control, and he can't help but to wonder why she had let him go like she had done, with a ride back to the central station and a kiss on his cheek in her heavy coat. Berlin had been cold on that day, colder than usual, in a way, under its grey skies, and France wasn't nearly enough of an idiot to think that Germany wouldn't know what he truly intended to do. Maybe it was her way of trying to push reality away once more. Maybe she thought that he'd change his mind one day or another.

The night before he had made her come with his tongue, nice and slow, her toned thighs on each side of his head. She always rode his face with complete abandon, her eyes tightly shut and her hands gripping his hair, moaning and shaking in pleasure. France wouldn’t miss it, or at least he tells himself so.

They fought for Paris but at the same time they didn’t, he knows it, from the way the streets look. He knew that even before he left, that Germany was breaking into pieces, from the way she’d look in the East sometimes, in the shivers that died in the crisp lines of her uniform. The bombings did that to her, France thought, making her wake up in the middle of the night screaming, or maybe it was something else, something darker that smelled of ashes, snow and death. He had never asked, because there were no questions to be asked, for his own good.

“ _So, what are you going to do with your first taste of freedom in years?_ ”

America is cocky, even cockier than France remembers him to be, back in the last war, and he gives him a little nudge on the shoulder as they watch the soldiers walk in the streets. It would make France laugh to hear him say something like this, especially after he’d specially asked him not to make the _coloured_ soldiers walk with the whites, but France knows better than to talk back to America after he’d liberated the city. France shrugs. It never really mattered anyway, whatever Algeria thought or felt about him.

“Destroy her,” he answers simply, and he doesn’t need to properly name her for America to offer him another annoying grin.

America laughs, and France wants to strangle him for that, but he won’t.

“That’s the spirit, buddy!”

England isn’t here. She’s been busy in Asia, and it must be weird to be fighting Japan now, after all those years during which they were on a semi-decent relationship. Old empires fighting new wars. America knows Japan won’t win this, and France hopes Japan knows it too, even though he’s been crazy enough to try to win this war with Germany on his side. Germany is bad luck, and Germany is going to dust now, in Hamburg and in Berlin, dancing on her own delicate, organised madness.

Maybe he should have let Austria talk sense into her, all those years ago. Maybe he should have killed him before he had time to do so, Habsburgs and monarchy thrown aside and the same soft, equal voice.

It doesn’t change anything to think about those things anymore. Paris shines in August, scorching, humid August, and America claps his hands with glee as beautiful white soldiers march without their less-desirable comrades. They watch them parade through the streets and then they head out for drinks, because America is paying and because France still has this sour taste in his mouth he needs to wash out. It doesn’t keep America from picking the wrong kind of wine to go with the food they’re served, eat loudly and being his usual boisterous self, and France does his best to welcome the whole thing with a polite smile and leaving his insults in the back of his head.

It surprises France when America stops talking exclusively about himself, about his soldiers and about the liberation that was his design all along, about the plans he has for the great world when this war ends, shiny American dollars and help for the reconstruction. He stops talking about himself, but it’s only to start talking about Russia.

“He’s changed, you know,” he says in a tone that is starting to get a little bit slurred from the wine now. “I know that the war has been rough on him, and I wanted us to be friends, I really did, but I’m growing a bit concerned, with England nagging me about this and that all the time.”

America has always been painfully honest about his feelings, and it is probably one of his worse faults. France won’t tell him about it, never did before, because he knows better than to give America pointers and help he doesn’t need. He’s young, far too young, and France hopes he’ll get to learn from his mistakes at one point or another. Germany hadn’t, and it was going to destroy her.

“England nags. It’s in her nature.” He doesn’t say anything about big sisters and how she had bitched about the New World for almost a full century after he had kicked her out. It would be weird. “And this war has been making all of us go a little bit crazy. I’m sure Russia will cooperate. He’s just holding a bit of grudge now, but it’ll go away.”

He can feel that America is burning to say something about France’s own situation with Germany, but America isn’t England, and he doesn’t feel things about France, be it affection or hate, as strongly as England ever would. France lies easily, and maybe it annoys America a little bit, but he stays silent, toying with his food in a way that makes France’s skin crawl without realising it.

“I hope. I hope it will. I don’t want to fight with Russia.”

He forgets to add _because I’ve seen what it did to Germany_. France gives him a fake yet perfectly credible commiserating smile, pats his shoulder over the table. It’s all bulshit, in France’s opinion, but he still speaks like he means any of the things he’s saying, like he feels like he had done the right things, like he hadn’t been toying with Germany’s youth and stupidity to save himself from the horrors of a brutal occupation.

“You said we’d rebuild everything together, didn’t you? Surely we’ll find a way to settle things down once and for all this time around.”

They drink more, because the both of them can feel in their guts that it isn’t quite true. The night falls, and France knows he’ll have to get his old uniform back to fight on and march over Berlin. America has his own things to deal with too, things he won’t talk with France about, wonderful war machines of pain and death. They bid each other farewell next to the Seine, with a polite nods and unspoken words still hanging between the both of them.

France doesn’t know anymore, how it will feel like to walk over Berlin in victory.

*


	8. Chapter 8

_West-Berlin, 1952_

It's still weird to come here nowadays, and France still feels weird about the whole deal he's supposed to carry out with Germany. He knows it's dumb to hold onto old grudge, if this century has been trying to teach him anything, it's this very fact. He arrives in Tegel with a soft smile plastered over his face and the feeling that something is not quite right in his chest. It's normal, he tells himself as he gives Germany a little nod. She's been waiting for him alone today, and maybe it means something, something new about their relationship that has grown into something different from the sensual yet emotionless encounters during the occupation. They still don't talk about it, probably never will, now that Germany swears she's changed her ways even though her sister, from her side of that thin line that hopefully will keep Russia and America to destroy each other, says the opposite.

The war had torn them apart the same way it had this city, and France knew better than to mention East Germany to her. He's here to try and mend the last decades between them. As they drive through the city, France makes entertaining yet pointless conversation, about The weather, about the colour of Paris during this this time of the year, and he carefully keeps silent about America's war in Korea, about England's loosening grip on a world she once held in the palm of her hand and about the menace of nuclear retaliation. Germany seems to be appreciating the effort, in her smart dark suit as she drives her perfectly functional yet dated car. She doesn't smile, but that's only because she's gotten better at hiding whatever it is that she is feeling. France understands, and he can only keep on talking about little nothings as he looks outside and watches the scarred skyline.

They eat in a restaurant, small place usually frequented by the foreign soldiers that seem to make up half of the population of this ruined city. Maybe Germany is that poor, or maybe she doesn't want it to be in any way like before, when they ate in the most expensive bistros of Paris like the world belonged to her. It's probably a mix of both, and now that her French has gotten quite better, he can almost, almost forgive her her less refined mannerisms. She’s not trying and failing to be Prussia anymore, and it’s a good thing, maybe, with her hair cut short, falling just over the line of her shoulders. France idly wonders what happened when she had to meet Italy after the war. She hadn’t been tender to him after he had abandoned her when the war had turned against them, but Italy forgave far more easily than France ever could. He probably never will know.

Germany is the one who declines to have a drink but she's also the one who starts talking about official business too. France listens to her in silence at first, sipping his wine with a relaxed air. It tastes awful, of course, but he doesn't complain even if he's the one paying this time around.

" _La Communauté Européenne du Charbon et de l'Acier_..." she says with a somewhat tired sound to her voice. "Was it your idea?" 

He shakes his head.

"No." He isn't lying. He's only here because the boss wants him to, because the war ended only to give way to a new one, one that France isn't sure he can fight anymore. "It still has a very nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

He's only half-serious, but it doesn't matter, not to Germany anyway. He’s never been fully serious when dealing with her personally, never really, as it was his way of never really acknowledging her and how she could crush him.

"I guess so..." She's picking at her food now and it annoys France very much. She realizes it faster than usual though, stops herself to take a drink from her glass of water. "I was only very much surprised that you'd..."

France knows she doesn't really have the strength to say it out loud, says it for her. "That I'd want to have anything to do with you this time around?"

It's uncharacteristic for him to be that upfront about anything. France, France who toyed with wars and toyed with words in an charming way and never forgave, never really. Germany looks at him, with her hair and makeup simply yet carefully done, and he can't even tell if she's about to burst out laughing or break into tears. She's old now, much older than she was all those years ago when she walked into his apartment in Paris and took his surrender with disciplined rage and a slap to his face for his impudence. He knows he can't play her like he used to, the same way she can't play him like she used to. It's strange, but maybe it's a good thing, in a way, for them to at least learn a little something from the millions of deaths that stand between them.

"It's not for us to decide those things anymore," France eludes without giving Germany enough time to really think everything through. It's too much. The last decade has been too much for everyone, in a way.

Germany agrees, with that slight relaxing in her carefully traced eyebrow, a short nod and a few words that France doesn't really make any effort to understand. What matters is the way Germany avoids his gaze as she says: “Do you really want this, France, or is this all smoke and mirrors again?”

It’s a legitimate question, France has to reckon, but he’s not sure what he’s supposed to make out of it. He stays silent for a moment, looking at her, at the harsh line of her shoulders and the strong fullness that is hiding under the fabric of her blouse. It takes his mind off things he’d rather not think about, even though he has to, in a way. Germany sighs, and there’s a hint of something more in her tone as she speaks once more. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”  
“No, please don’t apologise. I… I was thinking.”

He leaves his glass of wine on the table, the tips of his fingers brushing against his knife as he does. Germany’s eyes, icy blue that has grown greyer with the last few years, fall on him with an unreadable expression. Maybe it’s time for France to stop lying, for a moment at least, as it had been his lies and his games that had destroyed him over the last few decades in a most intimate way than all of England’s wars ever could.

“Trust is a big word, and I’m too old to be throwing it around like this, but I will. I don’t distrust you any more than you distrust me, if that amounts to anything.” 

He wonders for a brief instant if he should take her hand, for emphasis, but doesn’t. They’re past that kind of theatrics too, and France shouldn’t try to act on a script, he knows he shouldn’t. He hates acknowledging it, but he wants to try it, maybe, and learn from all the shit and the deaths and the massacres that are now past them. He wants to try not to fuck it all up this time around.

There’s still America and England and Russia and Prussia and this continent that has been going mad for centuries, and France is an old man with an old empire that is going to break into pieces, he knows it will. They’re not out of it, and there’s a part of them that still hate each other, but it’s time for the both of them to get past that, and at least try, try to go forward, together, maybe, without destroying each other.

“Let’s start something else than a war together, shall we?”

And to these words Germany almost, almost smiles.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _La Communauté Européenne du Charbon et de l'Acier_ = “The European Coal and Steel Community”, an economical treaty that is considered one of the building stones on which the European Union now stands.


	9. Epilogue

_East Berlin, 1985_

They meet over Alexanderplatz, in a panorama of wishy propaganda that is decaying under the little intrusions from the West that come and go through the wall. Skaters and rockers, giving their own twist to California in the streets of _Prenzlauer Berg_. She did change, over the years, but in a way she didn’t, sitting next to the World Clock with a cigarette between her lips and clothes that are way too big for her. She’s wearing the forbidden blue jeans, too, out of spite against him or because she wants to make herself seem tougher than she is, he can’t know.

“ _Salutations socialistes, Camarade_ ” Prussia grins lazily, before humming badly the first few bars of _L’Internationale_. “It’s been awhile.”

France shrugs, and the grin that comes to his lips mirrors hers. She’s a bitch for mentioning 1870, but he won’t hold her guilty for that, now that it’s been more than a century and that the both of them don’t matter nearly as much as they used to, old as they are. He off-handedly throws her his own pack of cigarettes with a comment about her Russian tobacco making his nauseous. She rises up to catch it and pockets it without making a move to remove the cigarette already in her mouth.

“Not nearly long enough for my taste, _mon petit coeur_. You don’t look as terrible as last time I saw you.”  
“Healthy dose of marxism and _Mocca-Fix_ every morning. You should try it, old man.”

She crackles loudly, punching his shoulder mockingly before dragging him towards _Karl-Marx Allee_ and the _Café Moskau_. She doesn’t talk about the man that trails them inside the tramway wagon and then out in the street, even though there’s a slight tension in her shoulders France can see. Prussia isn’t stupid, even with that new name she likes to call herself nowadays, or at least not stupid enough to let anything show.

She orders for the both of them without asking him what he’d like first, in a quick, heavily accented German that France cannot understand but know sounds infinitely different from Germany’s own calm, softer words.

They sip bad coffee and they eat _blinis_ , and Prussia jokes about things France isn’t sure she’s supposed to be joking about, with that same man standing outside the restaurant that hasn’t left, not yet. He doesn’t mention it to her, because he knows better than to tell her what she should do.

“How’s Russia doing?” France asks, without really knowing why. It’s probably because he still has to decide if something can be worse than America’s or England’s newest boss.

Prussia clicks her tongue disdainfully.

“Being a fuckhead as usual, but at least he actually tries to act nice during those stupid family reunions we have for New Year’s Eve at Hungary’s place. Got me a cute new set of nuclear missiles a few years back and all, maybe to apologize for that whole beating-the-shit-out-of-me-daily business of the early days. It’s kinda sad I can’t use it to nuke Poland, though.”  
“He knows you too well, it seems.”

She shrugs, lights herself one of France’s cigarettes without offering him one. Some things never really changed, and France wonders for a very brief instant how it would have all turned, had Germany and Prussia’s place been reversed. Prussia had always prefered a clear defeat with clear consequences and bleeding herself to death once or thirty times than promises of change and wide-eyed idealism. She would have strangled America for his consoling words and well-meaning gestures, most probably.

“I guess he does. That comes with him bashing my face with that stupid pipe in a bit too often for a ten years period, I think. Can’t blame him, ‘cause I would have done the same, really.” She rolls her shoulders with a yawn, flicks ashes into the ashtray next to the plate of Russian pancakes. “Enough talking about that asshole. You tell me about my little sister.”

And France tells her, about how she’s grown, and how she’s working as hard as ever. It’s a cold war and France know better than to get involved into the tragicomedy of the both of them once more. They’re still not talking, never directly anyway, because the both of them have no idea what to say to each other. There isn’t anything to say, about the war and everything that came before and after that, or at least nothing Germany can say just yet. Maybe they’ll work something out the same way England and himself worked something out a century ago. France can hope.

They go their own way after that. France can’t stay, and Prussia has to get home and get work done for the Party, as usual. The man tailing her is gone by now, probably because they’ve already bugger her apartment anyway. They don’t talk about Prussia’s scar of cigarette burns France caught a glimpse on over her wrist, and they don’t talk about Germany’s old scandals concerning East German spies, but it’s to be expected.

The war and all the changes it had brought with it, only decades ago, seems so far away now, and France can’t help but to feel that maybe, maybe the world war about to change once more, with Russia’s new boss and the twirling of time around them that keeps getting faster and faster on computer screens and television airwaves.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Salutations socialistes, Camarade_ = Socialist salutations, comrade.  
>  _mon petit coeur_ = My little darling.


End file.
